Publishing Experience:I have been a professional in the comics industry (as a colourist and line art reconstructionist) for 23 years. In terms of writing, I had a short story ("Like Ants to Honey") published in the "Far Horizons" e-mag (Issue #2, May 2014); I've also posted over 1.23 million words of fan fiction on Archive of Our Own, with with a total of 614473 individual hits, 29416 kudos, and 3919 reader bookmarks.

Posted 07 February 2018 - 03:38 PM

Let's try some different lengths.

Twitter hook, 140 characters:

Slave girl Girn'ash will risk it all to free the enemy warrior she loves. Queen Ev'ora wants him for her harem. Everybody is a dinosaur. #SF

Twitter hook, 236 characters:

A shrewd and secretive slave girl in an ancient dinosaur civilization falls in love with a dashing military prisoner, risking both the lustful rage of her Most Potent Chieftess and the threat of nuclear annihilation to set him free. #SF

Query letter hook, 157 characters:

Love and violence, war and lust, secrets and betrayals — even intelligent dinosaurs fell victim to such destructive impulses, more than 67 million years ago.

I read the second hook first, then I read the third one, then I read the first one and I had to reread the sentence "Everybody is a dinosaur." I'm like, wait what?? Is this book told from the POV of dinosaurs?

So I would go with the first one. Because even when you say "Everybody is a dinosaur." It's still hard to believe. So I think that line will stick.

A slave girl Girn'ash will risk it all to free the enemy warrior she loves. The Queen Ev'ora wants him for her harem. Everybody is a dinosaur. #SF

[Love this hook. Save a few characters and cut the names so the sentences flow better]Twitter hook, 236203 characters:

A shrewd and secretive slave girl in an ancient dinosaur civilization falls in love with a dashing military prisoner, risking both the lustful rage of her Most Potent Chieftess and the threat of nuclear annihilation to set him free. Everybody is a Dinosaur. #SF

[Also very good... but it doesn't contain anything near the shock value of 'Everybody is a Dinosaur', so I trimmed extra details and put it in.]

Query letter hook, 157145 characters:

Love and violence, war and lust, secrets and betrayals — even intelligent dinosaurs fell victim to such destructive impulses, more than 67 million years ago.

[Intelligence is implied. Honestly, the Twitter hooks are better, though this is still good.]